The Edge of Understanding
by GMGirl
Summary: In between the lies, there are misunderstandings and truths. All it depends on is how one views them. With so many fallacies between them, how do people see each other?
1. Conan and Kaitou Kid

AN: This is a series of oneshots that will take one character and how they view someone else. Basically, I want to explore how close or how far off the truth can be, depending what people know of each other. I will alternate whose POV it's from and who is being studied, but someone will be repeated. Most will probably have a subject of Conan or Kid, but there will be some others. First name will be the POV and second name will be the subject.

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Chapter One: Conan and Kaitou Kid

"Let you go to repay him for helping the kids, huh?" Conan murmured as he was heading back to the hotel, wiping away fingerprints from the diamond. He did promise to let Kid go and it would be a cheat to let them get his fingerprints from the diamond.

Or get his own. Better to have none and return it in a handkerchief, after all. Maybe that's why Kid trusted him with it even though he returned it without doing it himself.

...or he had some other trick, but better safe than sorry. He had been caught off guard a few times this heist, so it might have thrown off his meticulous planning.

"Though...that's possible too. You are the one who can read people, huh?" Conan murmured, holding up the diamond, only touching it through the handkerchief.

Conan had noticed the pattern himself. How many times has he actually relented in his attempt to catch Kid? First in the old house in the woods, the Iron Tanuki, the Ryoma case just a short while ago, now. Heck, if he wanted to be picky, his attempts for Seiran and the last case with Jiroki were more just shadows of attempts. After all, he had more than proven how far he was willing go to catch Kid by jumping off a sky scraper.

But that was different.

That was a heist. A false guess at the time, but when it was a real heist, he was willing to go all out. When it was interrupted by a murder or it was a hoax to begin with, he couldn't help, but feel that...

That it wouldn't be satisfying.

Though admittedly the soccer ball with the note was more to just let Kid sweat it out while getting chased all night. He was kind of hoping he DIDN'T get caught to suffer more, so of course he couldn't be following too.

Why though? He wouldn't have cared this much earlier on, so why did he now?

He saw the glint of the moon through the diamond. "Always returned after the full moon." Another clue in the puzzle that was Kaitou Kid.

Conan had more serious things to worry about. The Black Organization, Murderers, so many other crimes that were so much more threatening than Kid. However, wasn't that rather the point? Kid WASN'T a threat. Sure, sometimes bad things happened with him around, but that was through no effort of his own. People used his name or had poor timing. Really, they were likely to happen whether or not he was there. He was just another factor that could easily be thrown in or removed.

When it was all too much, it was nice to think of something challenging, but without the bitter taste of people getting hurt. He loved solving mysteries, but when he thought about it too much, there was a bittersweetness to them. They were a challenge and that was fun, but there was always that thought that someone died.

Sometimes he forgot that in his compartmentalized brain.

But that wasn't the case with Kid. The worst that was supposed to happen was hurt dignity, pride, and perhaps a bump or bruise, but ultimately, not dangerous. The property was even returned so really, the only thing that was a problem was wasting police time, public disturuption, and maybe some ruined clothes or decoration depending on the trick. More importantly, he was a challenge. Utterly mad, but totally brilliant.

And odd. So very, very odd.

Motive wasn't important to Conan usually. Yes, motive was important to the investigation and if necessary something he had to figure out or did by process of investigation. However, it didn't matter much to him. There were some cases that were true tragedies, death by a simple miscommunication or the like, but when it came down to it, not even the saddest sob stories could make him forgive a murderer.

That wasn't so with Kid. Mainly because there were such contradictions. Killers, thieves, bombers, all of them knew their motive and the only contradiction was in their insanity or misunderstanding. Yes, Kid was insane, but he was more than aware of what was normal and what was not. He knew human behavior or else he couldn't pull off his heists as brilliantly as he did. He predicted people. He understood people. So his contradiction could not be simple insanity.

Kaitou Kid didn't hurt people. Knock them out, fine, but ultimately, he was very careful to make sure no one was really hurt. In fact, Conan was pretty sure he was overprotective.

He knew about the Sunset Mansion. There were two sources to know, him or Hakuba. The other detectives never had any cases involving him before, so anyone he watched would be them. Hakuba obviously didn't tell the taskforce, so how could Kid know unless he kept a VERY careful eye on them?

And apparently went through their mail. Kind of creepy, but he had no reason to suspect the letter had to do with him. So he would read it because they got a suspicious letter in the mail. So in his strange, strange mind not only did he respect his pursuers, he worried about them.

Not to mention when people died and his name is tied in, even when there was a low chance people might learn of that fact, he seemed almost mad. He didn't want death tied in to the Kaitou Kid name in anyway possible, perhaps, but he probably hates the idea it might enter a person's mind.

Even going so far as to try and scare the murderer out.

Really, Conan had to wonder about a criminals intelligence to pin anything on Kid. Not only does using the name just attract detectives, it attracts Kid's attention and that's just begging to get yourself caught.

It was kind of funny.

Though that was another piece to this puzzle of Kaitou Kid. His heists. It was an easy task, looking up what he has tried to steal, for both the first and the second. Of course he knew Kid was around his age, being able to pretend to be him. He couldn't pull that off without a mask if he was supposed to be roughly twenty years older.

Even before that, he suspected because of the similar attitude he had as Hattori and Hakuba. It didn't take Kid long to acknowledge he was a threat and react as such. The adults around him, even the more brilliant ones, had a tendency to blow him off, but Kid hadn't. It was probably why he figured out who he was, but it gave him away.

Hattori and Hakuba acknowledged him as brilliant so fast for the same reason he believed Kid had at first. Because he knew age meant nothing, in the end, to what a brilliant mind was capable of. Being younger made it easier for him to believe that 'Conan' COULD be a threat.

Of course, he confirmed it, by posing as Shinichi.

However, back to the pieces that were his heists. The first one was rather varied with his heists. Usually going for jewels, but not restricted to just those.

Not so with the recent Kid. At first he was just as varied, but then it shifted. He went for only large jewels almost exclusively barring ulterior motives, such as when someone was challenging him, using his name, or it was a good deed he felt he had to do for whatever reason he has. Maybe it was like that with the first, but the reasons weren't as obvious as this one. Aside from the Clock Tower, which he suspected was because no police officer would take what the message said seriously, it was always obvious.

And all after Blue Birthday. Where the gem was reportedly found in an empty house with tracking device still in tact. Hardly his usual flair for the return and the house was in a neighborhood that houses were hardly abandoned. It might have been nothing, but the scenario didn't ring true. There was something there.

Perhaps...

"Even that guy might have danger," Conan murmured, pocketing the diamond wrapped in the handkerchief after he was sure he got off any possible fingerprints.

Then again, that had almost been confirmed, hadn't it? He had been at enough heists, around the taskforce enough to hear it. Upon looking at the files his father had on Phantom 1412, Conan started to suspect the possibility for the biggest contradiction in Kaitou Kid.

The snipers. Snipers would come to heists. Not always, but often enough. Snipers no one could find the source of. It was too often to attribute it to possibly the owners being too prideful or crazy to risk an accomplice of murder charge than let Kid steal their jewels. The fact they hadn't been caught in doing so just made him conclude it probably wasn't them.

So it was a third party. A third party was willing to shoot at Kid. It couldn't be solely for the jewel. Between the two, Kid or security, it would be roughly the same. Or if not, then Kid was tougher. At least there were limits to what can be done with security. If it was just because they happened to be eying the jewel at the time, it'd be better to wait until it was returned than get themselves arrested for murder.

Unless, of course, there was a reason they didn't want Kid to have it. Which meant it was likely to be at least as much to kill Kid as to get the jewel.

Why? Why, why, why? And Kid had to know.

And that was the contradiction. He didn't like people getting hurt, but if he was being targeted snipers, why make it easy to target him? The chance was low, but people still could be hurt because of such a thing. Why did Kid risk it? Why did he risk that when he hated it any other time.

But the original Kid had the same problem. Not always, but enough times it was suspicious.

Even the one person without that bittersweetness to his brilliance had troubles. It was always that thought that turned things around and things started to fall into place.

Kid disappeared eight years ago. Why? He was incapable. But was it just he was physically incapable or just incapable of anything period. The snipers were part of a third party. They weren't caught, so they had some skill. And they were around for years.

It wouldn't be impossible they figured out who that Kid was.

If the first Kid was dead and was logically someone very precious to the current Kid, then his contradictions all made sense.

It wasn't about the thrill.

It certainly wasn't about greed.

It was about justice.

A young child lost someone precious to them. Staged as an accident more likely, but an unsolved murder at the least. Eight years later, the child figures out who that person was. Probably the one who taught them magic. If the magic was too different, someone would notice, more than likely.

They had an inkling, but not the truth. Perhaps they learned of it from the elderly assistant? Someone who knew about Kid, but not the whole truth behind his death.

When he thought about it like that...

How do you find out about the truth eight years later? Get the proof? Avoid slandering that's person's name?

...it was simple then.

Draw them out. Draw them out by becoming the ghost of who they thought was dead. And at some point, he succeeded enough to actually find them. Find out the motive.

The motive being the jewel. They killed Kid because they didn't want him to have a jewel and now Kid is stealing both to get the jewel first and act as bait. Draw them out enough for the cops to grab them. They were shooting at someone, so they would be arrested no matter what and it could potentially avoid slandering their precious person's name.

Everything was explained then. It explained why such a noble person who hated violence any other time would take such a large risk. Why he WOULD be deliberately so flashy. Everything was explained.

...well, almost everything.

Tonight, he had another clue to that. The fact Kid returned the jewel said it was a specific jewel they were looking for. Something unique that they didn't know enough about. A jewel that had a relationship to the moon.

That was perhaps the one question Conan couldn't even begin to speculate. What exactly could this jewel be that made it dangerous enough for the first Kid to make it his mission to find and...for people to kill him for it? It can't be greed since Kid put it at risk by returning it...so what made a shiny rock so valuable that they needed something specific?

It was perhaps that, in the end, that made Conan pull back so easily as time went on. When a heist was ruined, the pure enjoyment was gone and it easier to become detached like in a murder. It was easy to get lost in the thrill otherwise, to forget that there was something Kid was trying to do. There was very possibly a threat he was trying to take down.

To cheat to win then, to ruin that chance...

Well, it made him wonder what would happen if he ever caught Kid in a real heist? Would he turn him in?

Or would he let him go?

All because there might be a serious threat out there that Kid was trying to stop.

"What exactly...are you racing to prevent, Kaitou Kid?" Conan murmured.

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AN2: This came when I was watching the latest OVA. I've talked about what Conan could, conceivably, figure out from his canon POV about Kid before, but after the moon thing, I finally decided to make a fic of it. Especially with the first real clue he has to what makes the stone Kid is looking for unique. Which may or may not appear in other future fics.


	2. Sonoko and Conan

Thanks to KSA Key-chan and Sock Monsta for reviewing.

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Chapter Two: Sonoko and Conan

"Is that really the time? Sorry, Sonoko. I need to start dinner," Ran said.

"All right. Tell the chibi I say get well soon," Sonoko said.

A small giggle. "I will. Talk to you later."

"Later," Sonoko said, hanging up her phone with a sigh. The little twerp went and got sick again and thus she was shopping on her own. Oh well, she couldn't really blame Ran. It was probably good for the kid, all things consider.

And consider she had.

Sonoko might not be the super genius some of the people she knew were, but she wasn't stupid. There was a reason she could believe she was the Deduction Queen!

...even if she couldn't remember making those deductions.

She certainly deduced enough about that kid. Hearing plenty from Ran, seeing it for herself, she noticed things. Sometimes she wondered if Ran really missed it or just played dumb because she didn't want anyone to worry and that's why she was always such a good big sister for Conan.

But considering Ran would be anyway, it was hard to tell.

Sonoko would admit she hadn't noticed it at first. Or rather she had and didn't think about it. All the little...odd things about him. Like when her Deduction Queen status first appeared. Talking about severed limbs so calmly and protecting Ran from a psycho murderer. She just thought 'weird' and brushed it off.

No, she could pinpoint when she REALLY started to think about it. It was after Ran met Edogawa Fumiyo. Ran told her all about it because she'd been worried for a while and something just seemed...wrong. The family was clearly loaded, from the amount she said her father got for Conan, so maybe that's why she noticed. Being around enough rich kids, she knew not all parents were as good as hers about being there for their kids.

It was like the Edogawa's just unloaded their kid. And with how Ran always talked about Conan never missing his parents or worried about going home, it kind of fit. Especially since she hadn't heard one peep about Edogawa Fumiyo except for a check that came every few months.

She actually started to feel sorry for the chibi. Clearly he didn't have very good parent. She wouldn't want to be around for parents who couldn't even call their son. Or even show up to visit him when he got shot! What was up with that? A High School detective all the way from Osaka comes to visit just cause he thinks of him like an assistant and they don't even send a letter or call?

It seemed unreal, even for the most neglectful of parents.

That's when she thought about the kid's homelife.

It was when Ran had amnesia that she really thought about him and all those odd little things she noticed suddenly seemed a lot more sinister.

The kid went to Tropical Land, and dragged Ran all the way around the theme park to save her and more than that, he stared down the killer all to protect Ran. And just the day before that, he jumped in front of a train to save her, no hesitation!

What kid did that? He knew what a train would do.

But it made her think and realized two things.

One was how very...protective he was of Ran. Now that she thought about it, Conan really was latched onto her in the beginning, wasn't he? Like he was afraid she'd vanish if he didn't. Gradually, he wasn't always trying to follow and even tried to leave some of their outings. But he never really refused when Ran asked him to come, even when it was obvious he wanted to do something else. Ran asked him to come and that was enough for him.

It made Sonoko wonder if the twerp saw Ran as a mother figure. And when she thought about it, he probably DID. With how distant and neglectful his parents obviously were, of course Ran was preferable. At the very least he has a huge crush on her, whether or not Ran believed it. It was kind of cute before she thought of how lonely his home life had to been. Then it was kind of depressing.

It almost made her want to root for him!

A tragic story of a lonely young man, falling in love for the one person to nurture him and show him the love he never had! A lady with a pure heart, only wanting to make a sad young man smile! It was so romantic!

Too bad he was ten years too late and it was with someone who was as good as married.

But then there was that sinister thought. Severed limbs not withstanding, there was something that had always nagged her about him. There was always something off and wrong about him in dangerous situations and when she FINALLY realized what it was months later, she wanted to kick herself for not realizing it.

He never screamed.

Not once. No shout, no yelp, nothing, but cold silence and an intense look on his face. She screamed. Ran screamed. The kids screamed. EVERYONE screamed at least once, except for maybe the police and Ran's dad. If they did, it wasn't often, but this was part of their livelihood!

But that kid never did no matter how many murders she's been around with him. She even asked the shonen tantei about it once, how he must be funny when he screams and they just looked at each other and said he never did unless he was telling them to get to safety or to get help.

It was a bone chilling thought. She almost asked Ran, but she knew the answer already. The kid didn't scream. The kid never screamed. The kid was never afraid. He faced murderers with no fear for himself. And he treated dead bodies with a detached air like they didn't affect him at all.

And she realized they didn't. It didn't matter the murder, how gruesome, how horrible the death was.

It was then she almost kind of feared Conan. She might not be an expert on psychology or anything, but that Just Wasn't Normal. How does a seven year old get used to dead bodies? How does a little brat become so detached from death?

What kid...what kid didn't get SCARED?

Oh, he'd get scared for others being in danger, particularly Ran. Then run across burning, collapsing bridges to protect them, even.

It made Sonoko wonder, what exactly did Edogawa Conan go through that he could just ignore all that blood and tragedy? The only thing she could think of was something absolutely horrible had to have scarred him or something. What other explanation was there? The only way he could be calm about all of that was because he saw something so much worse and none of it compares, right?

She didn't know.

She didn't ask.

She was too afraid at what the answer would be.

And she suspected the chibi didn't want pity. He was trying hard to always be strong, that much was obvious. Maybe what he wanted more than anything was normalcy? That would explain his weirdness, going from bubbly and cute to super serious and just plain abnormal. A way to hide whatever horrors he's gone through so that nothing fazes him anymore.

And if she let the shrimp tag along more than she would have allowed for any other kid, so be it.

The kid could probably use all the normal and motherly Ran as he could get.

* * *

This will probably be rather common. Oddities in Shinichi covering for not acting like a kid, just Conan's history seems like it'd be an interesting and honestly quite upsetting history and Sonoko is one of the few who'd probably know all the details without possibly realizing the Conan=Shinichi thing. (There's Kogoro, but I'll get into that with his chapter.) And it was interesting to explore how she views things. An intelligence, but kind of flighty until something gets her attention.

Next Chapter: Conan and Hakuba


End file.
